's collapse and the ensuing crisis led to a new push to make banks safer. in the u.s. a sweeping financial reform bill signed into law in july imposed stricter capital requirements on banks, yet largely left u.s. regulators to determine those levels. now new international standards may be on the way. this weekend in basil, switzerland, central bankers from 27 countries including ben bernanke agreed to new rules that included substantially raising amount of capital that banks must hold in reserve. banks in the u.s. currently must hold about 2% of their assets in capital or equity to absorb losses in the event of runs or financial panics. under the so-called basil-3 agreement the new international standard would be 7% of assets. but banks would have until 2019 to implement it. the head of the european central bank said the move would help protect against another meltdown. >> what we have decided is commensurate to permit when we have all the standards in place to make the banking sector at a global level much more resilient. and i would say we think we are commensurate to the shocks that we
